


Educatum Esse

by Delphi



Series: Educatum Esse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Abusive Relationship, Drama, M/M, Sexual Abuse, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-25
Updated: 2003-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:53:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus is under a serious misapprehension regarding his relationship with the headmaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Educatum Esse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2003 run of the ADXSS Buggering Bee. Challenge: _Either Snape or Dumbledore is under serious misapprehensions regarding the nature of their relationship._

**I.**

Severus Snape is twelve years old the first time the headmaster comes to fetch him. He wakes to darkness and the old man gently shaking his shoulder, and he allows himself to be quietly led out of the dormitory while his friends slumber on. It doesn't occur to him to be frightened, not even when he catches a glimpse of the common room clock and sees that it's after midnight; he's done nothing in recent memory to warrant anything more than a few days' detention. He wonders, briefly, if perhaps one of his parents has died.

The headmaster's bedroom is warm and dark. Shadows move in fluid waves around a few flickering candles, and if it weren't for the prickle of the rug beneath his bare feet, Severus might believe himself to be dreaming. As it is, he isn't entirely convinced otherwise as he listens in mute incomprehension to the headmaster's soft speech about being special, and being very mature for one's age, and needing guidance, and how some people just don't understand.

Severus doesn't dare tell the headmaster that he doesn't understand either. Not when he's sat down on the couch and given a sweet cup of hot chocolate that burns in his throat and belly, nor when the headmaster sits down beside him and begins to rub his shoulders. Certainly not when the headmaster puts his hand inside Severus's nightshirt. He doesn't want to look foolish.

And when the knowledge finally comes, it feels so good he thinks he's going to die. He doesn't need the headmaster to warn him not to tell anybody, not even his parents, because people who don't know how grown-up Severus is wouldn't understand how a man can be in love with a boy. This is his very own secret and, on the nights when the headmaster cannot come for him, he lies in bed and silently whispers the things he has learned: how to make an arrangement of limbs, and how to let himself be moved about like a puppet, and how sometimes things that hurt can feel good. He knows that skin is an organ, just like the heart or the liver, and he knows all about how things are done between men.

  


**II.**

Have you ever kissed a girl, Gaius Wilkes asks him.

It's a Saturday afternoon, and the two of them are stretched out on Gaius's bed working on their History of Magic essays. It's one of the first warm days, and they have their sleeves rolled up and their robes hiked around their knees.

Severus considers the question for a moment and then lies and says yes, because kissing is easy and girls' mouths can't be so different.

Gaius asks what it's like.

Severus thinks about sitting in the headmaster's lap, and how pressing his face into a beard is like being back home and lying in front of the fire with his head pillowed on his dog's belly. He doesn't like the beard so much when they're lying down in bed, though. It tickles his nose and makes him sneeze, and when the headmaster is on top, sometimes he presses down so hard that Severus can't breathe. He passed out one time and woke up back in his own bed, sore in funny places.

Wet, Severus finally says. And ticklish. Like eating something warm that squirms around in your mouth.

Gaius makes a face.

Severus frowns—no, it's good. It feels funny in your mouth, but good in other places. Sort of...melty. Gives you a stiffie if you do it properly.

Gaius's cheeks go red, and his breathing begins to quicken. Severus watches his chubby, pink hands clenching around his quill and wonders for a moment if Gaius is going to try to kiss him. But after a long silence, Gaius only shrugs and turns back to his essay.

Severus supposes it's for the best.

  


**III.**

Severus even knows some things that the headmaster doesn't. For instance, he knows that the headmaster isn't going to have to hit him ever again. The headmaster thinks he knows this as well, but he doesn't really, though he did nearly weep a little afterwards and promised he didn't mean to do it and that it would never happen again.

Even if it was worth making the headmaster sorry—being held very tightly, and petted very gently, and praised until the tips of his ears burned red—Severus knows from watching his parents that promises don't mean anything and that sometimes people just can't help themselves.

But Severus is smarter than his mother. He's going to figure out precisely what he did wrong so that he won't make the same mistake twice. He's curled over a book in the library, staring blankly at the pages and stroking the place on his cheek where a bruise should be.

He considers last night:

To begin with, he brought his perfect Potions essay with him, and that was good because the headmaster was very proud of him and made him read it aloud before they went to bed. Severus knows he might not be much to look at, but he's smart, and someday he will be as smart as the headmaster and the two of them together will be the most powerful wizards in the world. The headmaster even said that Severus should have got 101% because the bit about moonwort wasn't even in the textbook.

And Severus smiled when the headmaster said that they were going to do something special to celebrate, something he'd been saving until he thought Severus was mature enough to handle it, and that was good too. He's learned to look eager when he doesn't know what's going on, because he's ugly when he scowls and the headmaster calls him a sourpuss besides.

He knows he was good right through the kissing, and in lying out on the bed like he's supposed to, with his arms above his head and his left knee up. He was good when he made the little noises that the headmaster likes to hear. He thinks he might even still have been good when what the headmaster was doing to him started to hurt—when he squirmed and whimpered a bit—because the headmaster didn't hit him for that.

Then Severus went and screamed.

He didn't mean to, but then, he didn't know that the headmaster was going to go and push his _thing_ right up inside him either. He felt the slick stuff the headmaster had put in him squishing around and panicked, thinking he was bleeding.

The headmaster only hit him once, sharply across the cheek. And Severus stopped screaming at once.

The obvious answer is, of course, to simply try never to scream again. But that's the sort of solution his mother would think of, and it's foolish because he hadn't intended to scream in the first place and he can't be certain that nothing will ever hurt like that again. And it's not as though the headmaster hit him because he was angry that Severus was in pain, or else he wouldn't have hurt him more.

Severus frowns. The first thing he should do, in any case, is go to the headmaster and apologise for making him—

Ah. His eyes suddenly widen. Why _did_ the headmaster hit him?

Because...he didn't want anyone to hear.

Because he and Severus could get in a lot of trouble if people found out. Severus would be expelled and sent home in disgrace. The headmaster could be sent to Azkaban.

Severus feels a sudden warmth in his cheeks. And the headmaster thinks he's worth it...he has to or he wouldn't be risking so very much for them to be together. The thought is humbling: he cares about Severus that much.

He decides right then and there that no matter how much something hurts, he is never going to scream again, and he resolves to tell the headmaster just that so he won't have to worry anymore. And he's going to study extra hard for his next Transfiguration practical because the headmaster likes him when he's smart. The headmaster liked his perfect Potions essay. He's going to beat out James Potter for top marks this year, and next in third year, and then in fourth. He's going to be made Prefect. He's going to be Head Boy.

Severus's heart is pounding pleasantly in his chest. He smiles to himself, and yet, as he returns to his reading, he can't help but feel a slight pang of pity for his mother, who isn't smart enough to keep his father happy.

  


**IV.**

Of course he knows that the headmaster sometimes lies to him. But he always does it in such a way that Severus knows he's lying, and Severus has come to realise that's nearly the same as telling the truth.

The headmaster lies about the Gryffindors. About James Potter and Sirius Black. When Severus asks him why he doesn't make them stop. He claims that a little schoolyard teasing builds character, and that Severus has to learn to stand up for himself.

Severus knows better. He knows that the headmaster was a Gryffindor, and that people might become suspicious if he favoured a Slytherin. He even knows that the headmaster fancies them: Potter and Black, and Lupin, and maybe even podgy little Pettigrew, just a bit. That's okay, though. Severus knows he's not as handsome as them. His hair and skin are always greasy, and his nose is too big for his face, and his teeth are crooked. He knows he's not popular like them, not loved by all the teachers and all the girls. That's all right, because even though the headmaster looks at the Gryffindor boys, he never, ever touches them.

He doesn't dare.

And Severus suspects, though the man has never said it, that the headmaster must love him more than anything else in the world, to risk touching only him. Loving only him. He knows that if it ever came down to it—more than name-calling and hexes in the hallway—that the headmaster would take his side. If one of the Gryffindors ever really tried to hurt him, the headmaster would stand up for him.

He's certain of it.

  


**V.**

Severus Snape knows what love is.


End file.
